Nathaniel Carlyle Adderley (November 25, 1931 – January 2, 2000) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. He was the younger brother of saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, with whom he played for many years.
Adderley's composition "Work Song" (1960) is a jazz standard, and also became a success on the pop charts after singer Oscar Brown Jr. wrote lyrics for it.
Early life Nat Adderley was born in Tampa, Florida, but moved to Tallahassee when his parents were hired to teach at Florida A&M University. His father played trumpet professionally in his younger years, and he passed down his trumpet to Cannonball. When Cannonball picked up the alto saxophone, he passed the trumpet to Nat, who began playing in 1946. He and Cannonball played with Ray Charles in the early 1940s in TallahasseeLydon, Michael, Ray Charles: Man and Music, Routledge, , January 22, 2004. and in amateur gigs around the area.
Adderley attended Florida A&M University, majoring in sociology with a minor in music. He switched to cornet in 1950. From 1951 to 1953, he served in the army and played in the army band under his brother, taking at least one tour of Korea before returning to a station in the United States. After returning home, he attended Florida A&M intending to become a teacher.
Shortly before Adderley was expected to begin student teaching, Lionel Hampton played a concert at Florida A&M. Confident in his abilities, he played for Hampton, and Hampton invited him to join the band. Putting school on hold, he played under Hampton from 1954 to 1955 and visited Europe on tour. After returning, he intended to go back to school to become a teacher.
Career
1950s The turning point in the Adderley brothers' careers occurred on a trip to New York in 1955. The brothers stopped by the Café Bohemia in Greenwich Village when bassist Oscar Pettiford was playing. Both of them showed up ready to play. Cannonball was asked to sit in because the regular saxophonist, Jerome Richardson was out, and he overwhelmed the musicians. Then Nat was pulled on stage, and everyone was equally impressed. This appearance was enough to renew their careers. Job offers began pouring in, and Nat recorded for the first time that year.
The brothers moved to New York City, founding the bop group Cannonball Adderley Quintet in 1956. Due to a lack of popular interest, they disbanded the group in 1957. Nat played for trombonist J. J. Johnson for a couple of years and ended up in the Woody Herman sextet. Cannonball gained a higher profile and joined the Miles Davis sextet alongside John Coltrane in time to record the album Kind of Blue.
In 1959, the Cannonball Adderley Quintet reunited. This time around the group was more successful and had its first hit, "This Here", written by pianist Bobby Timmons. The group sound became known as soul jazz, starting the genre. The quintet also played hard bop, as everyone in the group had been influenced by bebop and wanted to continue a virtuosic tradition. Soul jazz kept the group popular, while hard bop gave the musicians a chance to challenge themselves and demonstrate their abilities.
1960s
During the 1960s, Adderley acted as cornetist, composer, and manager for the quintet. While he kept the band in order, he also composed some of the group's most successful songs. His most successful song was "Work Song" (January 1960), a hard bop tune. Adderley called it his "Social Security song" due to the steady flow of income over the years from royalty payments when others recorded the song. "Work Song" is now considered a jazz standard. His other popular songs include "Jive Samba", "Hummin'", "Sermonette", and "The Old Country".
While he was an integral part of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, this was not the only project occupying his time in his career as a professional jazz musician. Since moving to New York, he had been recording outside the Adderley group. He worked with Kenny Clarke, Wes Montgomery, and Walter Booker.
Other projects included the film A Man Called Adam (1966). In the film, Sammy Davis Jr.'s character plays the trumpet. Since Davis could not himself play the trumpet, Adderley was hired to ghost everything that the character played. His other significant project during this time was a musical. He and his brother wrote Shout Up a Morning based on the folk hero John Henry. While this project started as a collaboration, work was interrupted when Cannonball died from a stroke.
1970s After Cannonball's death in 1975, the quintet broke up. Nat Adderley toured Europe as a headliner. He toured Japan, then returned to the U.S. and taught courses at Harvard while performing and recording with his quintet, which included Walter Booker, Jimmy Cobb, and Vincent Herring. Adderley established himself in his own right. He also worked with Ron Carter, Sonny Fortune, Johnny Griffin, and Antonio Hart.
1980s and later years Adderley created the Adderley Brotherhood, a sextet which included several members of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet. This group toured Europe in 1980. Shout Up a Morning, after having a concert performance in Carnegie Hall shortly after Cannonball's death, was staged in several locations around the United States in 1986. Adderley became involved in several other ensembles over the next decade, including the Paris Reunion Band and a group called the Riverside Reunion Band (after the Riverside label), a bop group that formed at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1993 and then toured Europe in 1994.
Adderley spent half the year touring and the other half at home in Lakeland, Florida, writing and recording. He thought many of his greatest fans were in Japan, but Europeans were also enthusiastic about the music.
In 1997, he joined the faculty of Florida Southern College as an artist-in-residence. He also helped in the founding and development of the annual Child of the Sun Jazz Festival held annually at the university which he headlined for over a decade. During the same year, he was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame in Kansas City.
He lived on 112th Street in Harlem in the 1960s and in Teaneck, New Jersey, in the 1970s, before moving to Lakeland.Webb, Steve. "Nat Adderley remembers Dizzy - both musically and socially", The Ledger, January 9, 1993. He also lived near his brother in Corona, Queens.
Death and legacy Nat Adderley died as a result of complications from diabetes at the age of 68 in Lakeland, Florida. He was interred near his brother in the Southside Cemetery in Tallahassee, Florida. He was survived by his wife, Ann; a son, Nat Adderley Jr. of West Orange, N.J.; a daughter, Alison Adderley-Pittman of Palm Bay, Florida; and five grandchildren.
He was an innovator in the popularization of soul jazz and was one of the most prolific jazz artists of his time, recording nearly 100 albums. He proved that cornet could be a modern jazz instrument.
Style Although Adderley started playing trumpet, he switched to the less common cornet. He preferred the darker tone of the conical cornet to the brighter sound of the cylindrical trumpet. He could produce a rich, earthy tone that became his signature sound, one that could only come from the cornet. He also enjoyed the cornet's historic quality, reinvigorating the instrument played by early jazz musicians.
Adderley is widely attributed with the development and establishment of the 1960s style of soul jazz along with the rest of the members Cannonball Adderley Quintet. This style is characterized by simple harmonies, a heavy blues feel, catchy riffs, and a presence of the church. The point of soul jazz was to bring back a simpler type of jazz that had direct influence from blues and church music.
However, this is not the only style that Adderley wrote and played. The quintet was also widely known for their hard bop, which comprised roughly half of their recorded work.
As a soloist and composer, Adderley had a wide range of abilities. He could improvise simpler, more soulful solos for soul jazz numbers, but he could experiment and show off all of his abilities for hard bop. Especially in playing hard bop, he was not afraid to use the range of the instrument, often playing below the typical cornet range for short bursts before returning to the normal range. Although his range was starting to fade by the late 1960s, this did not keep him from continuing to play for the rest of his life.
Discography As leader Recording date Title Label Year released Notes 1955-06-26 That's Nat Savoy 1955 1955-09-06 Introducing Nat Adderley Wing 1955 1956-07-12, -18, -23 To the Ivy League from Nat EmArcy 1956 1958-09 Branching Out Riverside 1956 1959-03-23, -27 Much Brass Riverside 1959 1960-01-25, -27 Work Song Riverside 1960 1960-08-09 1960-09-15 That's Right! Riverside 1960 1961-06-20 1961-07-19 Naturally! Jazzland 1961 1962-05-19 In the Bag Jazzland 1962 1963-09-23 1963-10-04 Little Big Horn Riverside 1963 1964-12-21 –1965-01-07 Autobiography Atlantic 1965 1966-02-16 Sayin' Somethin' Atlantic 1966 1966-10-31 Live at Memory Lane Atlantic 1967 Live 1968-01-18, -19 The Scavenger Milestone 1968 1968-03-26, -28 1968-04-04 You, Baby CTI 1968 1968-11-19, -21 1968-12-04 Calling Out Loud CTI 1969 1972 Soul Zodiac Capitol 1972 1972 Soul of the Bible Capitol 1972 [2LP] 1974 Double Exposure Prestige 1975 [2LP] 1976-08-09 Don't Look Back SteepleChase 1976 1976 Hummin' Little David 1976 1978-09-18, -19 A Little New York Midtown Music Galaxy 1979 1982-10 On the Move Theresa 1983 Live 1982-10 Blue Autumn Theresa 1983 Live 1989-11-18 We Remember Cannon In & Out 1991 1990-05-12, -13 Autumn Leaves: Live at Sweet Basil Bellaphon 1991 Live 1990-05-12, -13 Work Song: Live at Sweet Basil Bellaphon 1991 Live 1990-11-08, -09 Talkin' About You Landmark 1991 1990-12-05, -06 The Old Country Alfa Jazz 1991 1992–01–19, –20 A Night In Manhattan Alfa Jazz 1992 1992-03-26 Workin' Timeless 1993 1994-06-20, -21 Good Company Challenge 1994 1994-10-25, -27 Live at the 1994 Floating Jazz Festival Chiaroscuro 1996 [2CD] Live 1995-12-18, -19 Mercy, Mercy, Mercy Alfa Jazz 2007
Compilation: Live on Planet Earth (West Wind, 2008) – live
As sideman
With Cannonball Adderley Presenting Cannonball Adderley (Savoy, 1955) Julian "Cannonball" Adderley (Emarcy, 1955) In the Land of Hi-Fi with Julian Cannonball Adderley (Emarcy, 1956) Sophisticated Swing (Emarcy, 1957) Cannonball Enroute (Mercury, 1957) Cannonball's Sharpshooters (Mercury, 1958) The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco (Riverside, 1959) Them Dirty Blues (Riverside, 1960) The Cannonball Adderley Quintet at the Lighthouse (Riverside, 1960) African Waltz (Riverside, 1961) – recorded in 1957 The Cannonball Adderley Quintet Plus (Riverside, 1961) Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley (Capitol, 1962) – recorded in 1961 The Cannonball Adderley Sextet in New York (Riverside, 1962) Cannonball in Europe! (Riverside, 1962) Jazz Workshop Revisited (Riverside, 1962) Autumn Leaves (Riverside, 1963) Nippon Soul (Riverside, 1963) The Sextet (Milestone, 1982) – recorded in 1962–63 Cannonball Adderley Live! (Capitol, 1964) Live Session! (Capitol, 1964) Cannonball Adderley's Fiddler on the Roof (Capitol, 1964) Domination (Capitol, 1965) Great Love Themes (Capitol, 1966) Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Live at "The Club" (Capitol, 1966) Cannonball in Japan (Capitol, 1966) 74 Miles Away (Capitol, 1967) Why Am I Treated So Bad! (Capitol, 1967) In Person (Capitol, 1968) Accent on Africa (Capitol, 1968) Radio Nights (Night/Virgin, 1968) Country Preacher (Capitol, 1969) The Cannonball Adderley Quintet & Orchestra (Capitol, 1970) The Price You Got to Pay to Be Free (Capitol, 1970) The Happy People (Capitol, 1972) – recorded in 1970 The Black Messiah (Capitol, 1971) Music You All (Capitol, 1976) – recorded in 1972 Inside Straight (Fantasy, 1973) – live Love, Sex, and the Zodiac (Fantasy, 1974) – recorded in 1970 Pyramid (Fantasy, 1974) Phenix (Fantasy, 1975)